Five... iconic concerts from the history of the Fairfield Halls
So many luminaries and legends graced this stage
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This edition’s a guest post from Will Noble, author of the outstanding Croydonopolis.
It’s adapted from an article originally published last year on
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The Beatles. Muddy Waters. Shirley Bassey. The Who. Nick Drake. Olivia Newton-John. It's a line-up Glastonbury would kill for, and yet over the years all these pop luminaries—and countless others—have graced the stage of Croydon's magical concrete box, the Fairfield Halls. So many of these great performances live on solely in the memories of those who were there (and, if you dig into the archives, some excellent reviews in publications like the Croydon Advertiser).
But some can be found online in the form of bootlegs, videos and live albums. Join me as I take a joyride back through recent history, to rewatch some of the greatest performances caught on tape at the Fairfield.
Ornette Coleman, 29 August 1965
"Was the Dagenham Alhambra on the tour schedule too?" asked one reviewer in response to the improbable occurrence of avant-garde Texan jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman choosing to record a live album in Croydon. If easy (or even moderate) listening is your bag, you can safely gloss over Croydon Concert—which at time sounds like a saxophone having a panic attack. Carpool Karaoke it ain’t, but the album's revered by proper jazz nuts, and does a fine job flaunting the Fairfield's famous acoustics—once considered among the best in Europe.
Pink Floyd, 18 January 1970
At the dawn of the seventies, Pink Floyd took their Flaming Cow tour to Croydon. Their Fairfield Halls set (like a few on this list, recorded as a bootleg) features one of the earliest live recordings of a track from Dark Side of the Moon—namely an instrumental flutter, which would become Us and Them. The set ends with The Amazing Pudding, which later evolved into Atom Heart Mother. My preference is for really early Pink Floyd, and although by 1970, the band were lighter to the tune of one Syd Barrett, they did perform the cosmic Astronomy Domine; to see this in a Croydon where space age high-rises were springing up all over the shop must've been out of this world.
Elton John, 28 March 1971
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